Dad's been kidnapped — wire money?: My Word

May 7, 2014|By Kerry Smith

If a news headline said, "Woman bilked out of money in phone scam," I'd skip the story. "I'm too smart for that," I'd say. But consider this example, which happened to my 26-year-old daughter with a master's degree:

A man called her because she's an emergency contact for me. There's been a car accident on Orange Blossom Trail. Your father is hurt. The caller doesn't know how badly.

Step 1: Adrenaline pumps. My daughter, who lives in Jacksonville, thought her father could die, and she thought an Orlando police officer was on the other end of the line. He filled in details: Two men and a daughter in one car; your father's fault; the little girl is hurt; your father's car needs to be towed. My daughter is shaking.

Step 2: The caller admits he's one of the men. The other man, his brother, has a warrant out for his arrest, he tells my daughter, so he couldn't allow me to call the cops, and he's royally angry that I hurt his little girl. In a panic, he kidnapped me.

Step 3: "This is a scam," my daughter thought. She was 95 percent sure, but the downside — Dad could die — was too heinous to simply hang up.

Step 4: My daughter listened for clues, but the caller made no mistakes and slipped in a number of how-would-he-know-that insights, such as my high blood pressure, which she only recently learned about. His cellphone number was right — a 407 area code. At one point, she texted my other daughter secretly and quickly — "R U with Dad?" — but got no immediate reply. She couldn't text me — they had my cellphone and could kill me.

Close your eyes and picture a parent, a child or a grandchild with a gun to his or her head. What do you do when you're 95 percent sure it's a lie, but someone's life hangs in the balance?

My daughter wired money. When she finally called me, her only question was: "Where are you?" She asked twice because I made light of it. She no longer feared a scam — she hoped it was a scam.

I once assumed that you avoid a phone scam by identifying it and hanging up, but it's not that simple. If I had a 1 percent shred of doubt, would I send money just in case? Of course. And I would pray it was a scam because I can't comprehend the alternative.